Agree with most of what you said, except your claim they are in the same shot group as most other NATO nations.
France and England are ranked shoulder to shoulder, but the rest of NATO is extremely far behind except Germany which is still down the ladder from the above two. No other NATO nation makes the top ten.
The French Rafale is not to be sneezed at. For such a small country in comparison to all the other ranked military forces except Gr. Britain, I think France holds its end up very well.
I think Turkey is in the same class as France or Germany, as far as military goes (not that I’d depend on Turkey, but they are in NATO.
And I guess when I think of NATO, I really think of UK, Germany, France, and Turkey. So yes, France is in the Top Tier of NATO...and the lower tier is orders of magnitude behind the top tier.
But I still don’t think France could project power abroad on its own, without NATO (with the exception of a nuclear strike). Their military just isn’t built that way. I’m not saying its bad...its a logical choice they have made. They will rely on themselves for defense, and only project power as an auxiliary of NATO.
I just don’t think they could even have done this 20 bomb raid yesterday without a US protected corridor.